The White House hosted a closed-door meeting with a number of tech luminaries and executives on Thursday to talk about privacy issues. Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, and Vint Cerf (the co-inventor of TCP/IP) were reported to be in attendance, according to Politico.

This was the second high-level meeting held this week between the Obama Administration, tech companies, and civil liberties groups—however this time, the president himself was apparently present. For now, everyone seems to be staying mum about what actually transpired.

“I am sure there are many curious minds, but this was off the record,” Cerf told Ars.

The move came the same day as two major US-based secure e-mail services shut down, Lavabit and Silent Circle.

As Politico reported:

The administration’s outreach began Tuesday, when chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler convened a privacy-focused huddle in the Roosevelt Room. Joining them were representatives from the Information Technology Industry Council, TechNet, and TechAmerica, which together represent a diverse swath of the tech industry—from major defense contractors to companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center were also present, sources said.

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar